


The Orc Next Door

by Ovipositivity



Series: Folk [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Human/Monster Romance, Human/Monster Society, Modern Era, Orcs, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 11:29:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17021841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ovipositivity/pseuds/Ovipositivity
Summary: In a world where humans and mythological creatures live side-by-side, you find yourself intrigued by your building's orc handyman.





	1. Chapter 1

You gasped the first time you saw him. Of course you felt bad about it at once, even if the weary resignation in his eyes showed how accustomed he was to that particular reaction. You were just… surprised, that’s all. Just surprised.

Your mother had warned you about this. Your last night at home, helping you decide what went in your suitcase and what could stay in a cardboard box in the cellar. The two of you had been standing next to each other in your bedroom, folding shirts. “You have to be careful in the city, Y/N” she’d said. “There’s  _ all kinds of people _ living there.” She said this last in a hush and with a brief, seemingly involuntary glance over her shoulder, as though someone was hiding in your closet, ready to burst out and be offended by her parochial sensibilities. “I know, mom,” you’d said, rolling your eyes. “I’ll be careful. I heard it all from dad. Don’t flash money around, don’t walk alone home at night–”

“No, I know you know that stuff,” she’d said. “But… you know there’s Folk living in the city now. That’s what they call themselves now, right? Folk?” She’d looked so prissy in that moment that you’d almost laughed. She was going to warn you off a whole class of people, but she wanted to be polite while she did it. “Anyways, the elves are glamorous, and I guess even the gnomes and pixies aren’t so bad, but there’s  _ orcs _ .”

“So?” you said. “There’s orcs. So what? They’re just like us. Just… bigger. And tuskier.” 

Your mom shuddered and turned back to folding a babydoll tee with the logo of a band you hadn’t listened to in five years. You shook your head and smiled. This was why you were moving out, you reminded yourself. To get away from this small-town attitude before you caught a terminal case of it.

Still, the first time you’d seen him, you’d gasped. You’d recovered quickly, but your eyes kept darting to his jutting tusks, to the wiry tufts of dark hair growing on the back of his knuckles (green! those knuckles were _green!_ ), to the nametag stitched on to the breast of his chambray work shirt. _Kolosh_ , it said. An orc name. A real orc name for a real orc.

Kolosh looked up at you with wide brown eyes. Those, at least, looked perfectly human, and perfectly tired. “Are you Y/N?” he asked. His voice was deep and gravelly, but his enunciation was perfect– none of the slurring that characterized orc villains on TV.

“Y-yes,” you stammered, embarrassed. “I’m Kolosh,” he said, pointing to the nametag. “Super sent me? Said you had a problem with your wiring?” Only then did you notice the toolbox clenched in his other hand. He was hefting it like a lunchpail, even though it must have weighed more than your full suitcase. It barely fit in the hall with him. The thought of that strength made you uneasy all over again– along with other feelings, more ephemeral, harder to pin down.

“Oh!” you said. “Oh! Yes! Please, right this way!” You opened your door and stepped back quickly. As Kolosh stepped into your apartment, you wished for a fleeting second your roommates were here. He topped you by at least a foot, and each step made the buckles on his heavy workboots jangle. You caught a whiff of something as he stepped inside– sweat, grime, oil, stale deodorant, and something deeper, something that reminded you of spring walks in the woods just after it rained. It was a damp, mossy smell, a primeval smell, a smell of leaf mould and sap. It was there for just a second and then it was gone, leaving you wondering if you had imagined it. 

You watched fearfully as he stalked through your apartment, heading for the kitchen. You had told the super which socket wasn’t working, and Kolosh clearly knew the apartment floorplan. You cringed as he walked past your display table. You’d wanted to leave some of your origami in the hallway to greet visitors, but your tiny birds and bears and automobiles looked impossibly fragile next to his imposing bulk. He paused and turned to look at them and your breath caught in your throat, but then he was moving on, maneuvering his toolbox with such great delicacy that it didn’t even bump the table’s leg. You breathed out, feeling a bit like an idiot, and scurried to catch up with him.

He set his toolbox down on the granite countertop and squinted at the outlet next to the microwave. “This the one?” he asked. You nodded, then realized he couldn’t see you. “Y-yes,” you said. “It was working last week, but now…”

He retrieved a screwdriver from his belt and bent down over the socket. His thick fingers moved with surprising grace as he unscrewed the outlet plate.

“This might take a little while,” he said. “Want me to call you when I’m done?”

“O-ok,” you said. You practically fled back to your room and leapt up onto your bed. Only when you were lying down did your heart rate start to slow.  _ An orc! There’s an orc in my apartment! _ The thoughts kept chasing each other around in circles. You sat up, grabbed your tablet, and started typing out a text. Your roommate Lily was at work, but you knew she checked her messages constantly.

_ Repair guy is here,  _ you typed. Sure enough, the message was marked as “read” almost at once.

_ Finally!  _ Lily responded.  _ Is he taking a look at the faucet too? _

_ IDK _ , you wrote. Then, immediately,  _ He’s an orc. _

_ OMG! _ sent Lily, along with three startled emojis, plus one green and tusked one.  _ What’s he like? _

_He’s_ _big_ you wrote, and then, feeling that this was a bit inadequate, wrote _polite, though. He smells weird._

_ Bad weird? _

_ No. Just… different. _

Lily was typing for a while– you saw the three dots appear and disappear multiple times– before the next message appeared.

_ Is he cute? _

_ Lily! _ you replied, partially to avoid having to answer the question.

_ J/k _ she said.  _ I’ve got a meeting. Have fun with your orc.  _ Then another green-skinned emoji. You sighed, dropped the tablet, and grabbed a few sheets of washi. Folding always made you feel better when you were stressed out.

You sat there for at least twenty minutes, working in meditative silence, before Kolosh’s voice broke your concentration. “Hello?” he called. “Y/N? I’m finished.” His voice, even muffled by the door, was so rough and so deep. You dropped the half-finished creation you had been working on and threw open the door. You ran to the kitchen, almost crashing right into him. He startled backward in surprise.

“Sorry! Sorry!” you said. “Is it working?”

“It should be,” he said. “Why don’t you plug something in and test it?”

You eased past him, conscious of the way he took up nearly the whole kitchen space, and unplugged a toaster from the wall socket. You re-plugged it at the socket he had just been working on and depressed the lever. The heating coils lit up with a familiar hum. “Yes!” you said. “Thank you! Thank you thank you!” You realized you were babbling and cut yourself off, blooms of color rising in your cheeks. Kolosh waved you off.

“Just doing my job, ma’am. Have a pleasant evening.” He raised one hand to his forehead in a respectful salute and hefted his toolbox in the other. You followed him down the corridor. He paused again at your origami table and looked down.

“Did you make these?” he asked. 

“Yes,” you replied. He smiled. The tusks made his expression a little threatening.

“May I pick one up?”

An image filled your head: his huge, hairy fingers crushing your tiny fleet of cars, the paper splitting and ripping beneath his claws. You wanted to say no, but the look on his face stopped you. It was so earnest, and there was something pleading in there, too, something curiously vulnerable. 

You nodded breathlessly, not trusting yourself to speak.

With surprisingly delicacy, he reached down and plucked up a paper bear. Its head was large and round, its yawning mouth full of tiny paper fangs. He held it between his thumb and forefinger and turned it this way and that. He set it down again so gently that the table did not move a millimeter, then turned to you. “Great work,” he said. “Very detailed.” Then, as if that had exhausted his stock of conversation for the day, he turned away and slouched towards the door. Before you could say another word, he was gone


	2. Chapter 2

(author’s note: this story works so much better in present tense that i’m changing it going forward. maybe i’ll go back and edit part 1. maybe i won’t.)

Lily gets home from work around six PM. You’re already in your pajamas, sitting cross-legged in the living room with a bowl of pasta in your lap and your computer perched on the coffee table. She flounces into the room even before she’s taken her coat off and sits down hard on the other end of your ancient couch, nearly spilling you onto the floor.

“So, Y/N,” she says, stretching out the last syllable of your name into a rising note as if you were back in grade school. “An orc, huh? Tell me tell me!”

You shrug. Lily is doing her “messy bitch who lives for drama” voice, which normally you love, but tonight you’re not feeling it. “He was just an orc, Lily,” you say. “He was totally polite. He just came in and fixed the socket.”

Lily pouts. Clearly, this isn’t the answer she wanted. “Come on, that’s no fun. Did he smell? Did he speak english or just grunt?”

“His english was fine!” you say, affronted on his behalf. “And he smelled… I dunno, like a working guy. Sweat and grease and stuff. Like a plumber.”

Lily watches your face carefully for a moment and then shrugs. “That’s wild, man,” she says. “An orc in our building. Did he have clan tattoos? Did he carry his axe?”

“I don’t think the handyman’s allowed to carry an axe around, idiot,” you say. “And he didn’t have any tattoos that I could see. He looked very clean cut. For an orc.” You wonder why you added that last bit. Kolosh had looked clean-cut by  _ any _ standard.

“Whatever,” Lily says. “Hey, next time something breaks, I’ll stay home. I wanna see an orc. There’s one who works as a janitor in my building, but she never talks to anyone. Just wears this wide-brimmed hat all the time and looks down if she sees you watching her.”

You know Lily means well, but there’s a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach all the same. You remember the way Kolosh held your paper bear, the delicate way his thick fingers cradled it. You shove the image out of your mind and pulled up a show on Netflix. 

Over the next week, every time you leave your building for work you look around for Kolosh. You tell yourself that’s not what you’re doing-- but every time the elevator dings and you step out into the lobby, your head swivels around. Every time a hulking silhouette crosses your vision, you squint at it to make sure it’s not him. There are a  _ lot  _ of orcs around, you notice. Way more than you thought. Sweeping floors, selling newspapers, picking up garbage, working at construction sites. The clattering streetcar you ride to and from work is driven by an orc, his gravelly hollar calling out each new stop. 

Of course, there are no orcs at your job. Your office is really just a cube farm, but it’s on the 29th floor, and you have to show your badge to the building doorman to get in. There are a couple of elves on your floor, and even a quartet of pixies (their miniaturized workspaces all fit into a single cubicle), but you know that no orc in the city works in an office like this one.

Gradually, he slips from your mind. Work is picking up, and you spend most of your days off getting to know people. Lily introduces you to some of her friends from college. Zollo the dwarf carries around a vape pen and blows the best smoke rings you’ve ever seen, and Lily’s old roommate Maggie breathlessly informs you all that she’s dating a satyr. “My parents are  _ total _ hippies,” she assures your group over drinks. “They wouldn’t care if I had  _ foals _ .”

Maybe it’s just the wine, but you think that’s  _ hilarious _ . You laugh until you think you’re going to throw up.

You don’t, though. Not until you get home. There, leaning on Lily in the lobby, you barf like a champion. Great stringy clots of vomit splatter across the clean tile floor. For once, you’re lucky-- nobody’s sitting at the security desk to witness your misfortune. You groan woozily and slouch against the wall, wiping your mouth on the back of your sleeve. Lily tugs urgently at you. “C’mon, Y/N,” she hisses. “Let’s get out of here before someone notices.” Her finger stabs at the elevator call button over and over, as though that would make it come faster. She hustles you upstairs and tucks you into bed, making sure to roll you onto your side.

You wake up hours later. You’re not sure what time it is-- the sounds of the city outside are muted, but never truly silent. You’re still in your clothes and still a little drunk; you grope for your phone, to check the time, and realize you don’t have it. You panic briefly. Your phone! Did you leave it at the bar? No… a fragmentary memory bubbles up. You try to focus on it. You were checking your texts in the lobby, right before you blew chunks. You grimace with embarrassment and pad as quietly as you can to the door. Your phone’s probably still down there.

The elevator is quiet and empty and a little cold at this time of night. You huddle up with your arms pulled around yourself. The little L button lights up and the doors swish open, and you step out into the lobby. Everything’s dark and still at this time of night; the front doors are locked, and the night watchman is sitting at his desk. He recognizes you and gives you a little nod. You’re shivering now, wishing you had put on a coat, but you nod back. You’re about to ask him if he’s seen a phone when movement flickers in the corner of your eye.

You turn, and there’s Kolosh. He’s wearing the same outfit as the last time you saw him, the heavy boots, the chambray work shirt. This time he’s accessorized with a mop, which he’s drawing back and forth across… 

  
Your puddle.

Whoops.

As if feeling your eyes on him, he looks up. In that instant, you wonder if he can tell that you’re the one that puked on his floor. You’re the one that made extra work for him. You probably dragged him out of bed. Guilt and shame are vying for your attention, and it’s a photo finish. You slink away to the front desk and ask the security guard under your breath if anyone found a phone. He reaches down and produces it with a wry grin. For a wonder, the screen’s not cracked.

You look back at Kolosh, but he’s focused on his work now. He methodically drags the head of the mop back and forth. With a last shudder, you run for the elevators and the safety of your bed.

The next morning you’re hungover and your mouth feels like it’s stuffed with cotton balls. As you pull on fresh clothes you consider that this is probably a just punishment for what you did to poor Kolosh. He may be an orc, but he probably doesn’t enjoy cleaning up vomit any more than you would. The thought won’t leave your head all day, and after a couple of hours of miserable and frustrating distraction at your work desk, you decide to do something about it.

  
You briefly consider hitting an ATM on the way back from work, but the idea of just handing him some money feels so… so… well, it’s what your mom would do. Offering to buy him dinner seems inappropriate. Luckily, you have a third alternative. 

You start as soon as you get home, selecting a delicate sheet of washi, light blue with a faint red chrysanthemum pattern. Your fingers move quickly. You’ve done this pattern before, a few times, but never on the first try, and never this smoothly. It takes shape before your eyes, a poem in folded paper: a horse, a leaping stallion, caught in the moment of motion. The lines are simple and abstract, yet the figure in your hands seems ready to sprint away across the bed. There’s a sense of power captured and coiled. You lay it down on your desk and only then do you realize you’re holding your breath. Your exhalation makes the horse tremble and for a moment it looks alive. Then it’s just paper again, and you set your expression. Now for the hard part.

You’ve never been to the basement before, but it’s not locked. There’s laundry machines down here, you remember, for those not lucky enough to have hookups in their apartment. There are other doors, too, lysol-smelling closets and clanking machine rooms. You’re about to give up and climb the stairs back to the lobby when you see him.

There’s a door hanging open, and he’s kneeling on the other side in front of a boiler. You knock gently on the open door and he looks up. His expression changes from annoyance to caution in a second. “Can I help you?” he asks. “You’re… Y/N, right? With the broken socket?”

Your heart skips a beat.  _ He remembers your name! _ You swallow, and extend your arm, the horse perched on your palm.    
  
“Um. I made you. Something. A present. Um. Because I’m sorry. Um. The mess. In the lobby. I’m sorry. Um. About that.”

His face creases into an expression of confusion as he tries to parse your scrambled sentence. You put the horse down gently in between the two of you and back away. “Sorry,” you say. “Sorry.” Whether you’re apologizing for throwing up for or for the word salad you just dropped all over him, you aren’t sure.

“Wait!” he says. But it’s too late. You retreat for the safety of the stairs. A couple minutes later you’re back in your apartment, but it’s a long time before your heart rate returns to normal.


	3. Chapter 3

You don’t tell anyone about your gift. Who could you tell? And Kolosh makes no move to thank you. If anything, he’s avoiding you. The one time you catch a glimpse of him, he looks away quickly. You’re not good enough at reading orcish facial expressions to know if it’s anger or embarrassment or something else on his face, and you’re too embarrassed yourself to stare.

Lily notices something’s up, though. She flops down next to you on the couch one night while you’re reading endless reviews of TV shows you never plan to watch.

“What’s up, Y/N?” she asks.

“Uh, not much,” you say, the rote response to the rote question. She rolls her eyes. “No, I mean what’s up with you lately? You seem so preoccupied.”

  
“Nothing,” you say, a little defensively. “I’m just thinking about work."

  
“Is it a boy?”

“No!” You feel your cheeks getting a little hot. Lily sees this and goes for the kill.    
  
“It is, isn’t it? It’s that bike messenger who came to your work last week, right? God, that guy was  _ adorable _ . Made me want to mail a letter to my office just to see him deliver it.”

  
“No! It’s not the bike guy!” you say, a little indignant. He had been cute, but he wasn’t your type. Whatever that was.

“But it is someone!” Lily says with an air of triumph. “Who? Come on! No secrets from your roomie!”

You think desperately. “It’s… this guy at work, ok? You don’t know him.”

  
“Is he hot?” Lily spends the next ten minutes grilling you while you make up characteristics for your fictional office crush. The whole time, all you can think of is Kolosh. You almost give the game away right at the end when, unthinking, you tell her you want to kiss him on his tusks.

“Tusks?” Lily makes a face. “Y/N, is this guy an  _ orc _ ?”

“No!” you say. “No! I said moustache! It looks… scratchy,” you finish lamely. Lily rolls her eyes and with a final complaint about “hipsters” flounces off to her room. You sigh and close your laptop. No more reviews for you tonight. You think it’s time you go back to your room. A little folding will calm you down.

Sitting at your desk, you’re surrounded by your menagerie. Wolves and cats, cranes and owls, mice and elephants-- they all stare at you with little ink eyes while you add to their number. You googled “orc origami” once (in Incognito mode, obviously) but the results didn’t thrill you. You figure maybe you can make a little origami man and draw tusks on him. But Lily’s in and out of your room all the time… safer not to. You settle on a nice ostrich. You ruin two sheets before realizing that you’re far too distracted to do delicate work. Instead you just open Netflix again and click on the first icon that loads.

You’re two episodes into a rather uninspired comedy special when you hear a heavy thump and a shout. “ _ Motherfucker! _ ” screams Lily, and you come running. When you arrive in the living room, she’s soaking wet and looks furious. “What happened?” you ask.

“Fucking washing machine!” she says. “I swear to God nothing in this place works! The pipe must have burst or something. What the fuck am I gonna wear tomorrow?”

“There’s coin-op machines in the basement,” you say, remembering your sojourn the other day. Lily rolls her eyes. “Great. Remind me what I pay rent for?”

“I’ll call the super,” you reply. You’re already in the kitchen. Your heart’s beating faster. You dial and explain your problem to the annoyed voice on the other end. “I’ll send a guy tomorrow,” he says, and hangs up. 

Tomorrow!

You try as hard as you can to keep from grinning. Lily’s still bemoaning her bad luck, so you run to your room. You hope that among the clean clothes left to you is one nice outfit.

You take the next day as a work-from-home day. If Lily notices, she doesn’t say anything. You enjoy a late breakfast, and before you’ve managed to change out of your pajamas, there’s a knock on the door.

_ Fuck _ .

“Coming!” you squeal in a voice that sounds at least an octave higher than normal. Red-faced with embarrassment you struggle to pull on some decent pants over your jammies, and you grab the first jacket in reach. No time to check how you look in the mirror. You throw open the door and there’s Kolosh.

He startles back at the sight of you. Inwardly, you curse.  _ I must look like a bag lady _ . You make yourself smile and wave him inside like a butler on TV. “Please, come in. You’re here about the washing machine?”

“Uh, yes,” he replies. He runs one thick-fingered hand through his hair. Is it just you, or does that hair look a little shinier today? Is it pomaded? You can’t tell. He slouches through your apartment with his toolbox held behind him. When he reaches the bathroom, he lays it down gently and pulls the washing machine out from the wall without apparent effort. One look behind it and his broad face creases in consternation. “I can see the problem,” he says. “Looks like the pipe cracked. I’ll replace this section.” He gets down on his hands and knees, then looks up at you over his shoulder. “This is going to take a while.” He pauses. “Is that ok? Should I come back?”

“No, no no no!” you say. “No, I mean. I’m working from home. It’s fine.”

  
“Ok,” he says. He hesitates. For a moment, it looks like he’s going to ask you something, but he doesn’t. Instead, he picks up the toolbox and drags it closer.

You watch him work for twenty minutes or so, but it really is boring. You decide to go out and get some work done. It’s agonizingly slow going. Every ten minutes you find your thoughts wandering to the orc in your bathroom. All kinds of thoughts are running through your head. You wonder what his skin feels like. It looks rough, callused. You wonder what he tastes like. Your cheeks color, but you can’t push the thoughts out of his head. The way his muscles bulge under his workshirt… you wouldn’t be surprised if he could lift you up one-handed.

At about noon you make yourself a sandwich for lunch. Then, on a whim, you make another for him. You take it into the bathroom, where mechanical pieces are spread out across the floor like stars in a constellation. You tread carefully to avoid stepping on any of them and wave to get Kolosh’s attention.

  
“Um, Mr. Kolosh?” you say. “I made you some lunch. Uh, if you’re hungry.” You hand over one of the plates, which he takes without complaint. He peers at the sandwich as if he’s never seen one before. “Is this turkey?” he asks. You nod.    
  
“Great!” he says, with sudden enthusiasm. “My favorite. Thanks, Y/N.” He suddenly looks up at you. “I’m sorry. I hope that wasn’t too informal.”

“No problem!” you say. Your voice is just about a squeak now, and you try to take a deep breath. “No problem. Thanks for coming up so quickly.”

He’s wolfing the sandwich down now. His tusks shred the bread, but he’s a surprisingly careful eater. He’s used to it by now, you suspect. Barely a crumb spills onto the plate. When he’s done, he sets it down on top of the washing machine. “Delicious,” he proclaims. “Thank you. Most people don’t--” he stops. Suddenly his expression is self-conscious. He turns back to the washing machine and picks up a wrench.

A couple of hours later, you hear the squeal as the heavy machine is pushed back across the floor. You exit your room just in time to see Kolosh emerging from the bathroom. He heads for the front door, and you move quickly to intercept him in the hall.

You’ve been working up your courage all damn day, and you still can barely get the words out. “Kolosh,” you manage, and he turns around. “Listen,” you say, “I just wanted to say… about the other day, I… I really…”

His eyes are on you now, so big and so brown, brown like the trunk of the oldest tree at the center of the forest. There’s no malice in them, no guile. You find yourself falling into his stare. Your mouth is too dry to keep talking.

Kolosh is the one to break the connection. He looks down and reaches into his pocket. Before you can ask what he’s doing, he’s pulled something out. At first you think it’s a piece of origami, but the shade of white is wrong. He sets it down on your hall table next to your little origami friends.

It looks like it’s carved from ivory, or maybe bone. It’s a little wolf about three inches long, with black dots for eyes and its tiny teeth bared in a grin. On the side, carved so tiny you can barely read them, are tiny black letters. You squint. They’re not letters-- they’re pictograms, orcish runes, and you don’t recognize any of them. “What…” you breathe.

“Amadaya,” says Kolosh. “Orcish scrimshaw. Sorry, I’m not very good. It’s just a… just a hobby.” He folds his hands together. You can see his fingers squeezing each other, just like you do when you’re nervous.

“It’s beautiful,” you say. “What does it say?”

He shrugs. “It’s just part of a story. A traditional orcish fable about a wolf who swallowed the moon. They all have stories on them.” He clears his throat. “Anyways, I really liked the horse you made me. So I made you this.” A thought seems to occur to him. “Please don’t tell the super. If you don’t want it, that’s--”

  
“No!” you almost shout. “No, I love it. I want it. I want--” you hesitate. For just a second, the moment is right, but you hesitate and it’s gone now, gone like the wind between your fingers. You stare at the ground. “Thank you, Kolosh,” you say. “Have a great evening.”

“You too, Y/N,” he says. He tips his fingers against his forehead in a little salute again and then he’s gone.


	4. Chapter 4

After Kolosh leaves, you take the little wolf back to your room. It’s not that you don’t want anyone else to see it. Obviously not. But you can’t let it out of your sight. You lie in bed, your fingertips running over its smooth surface-- it’s still warm from being in Kolosh’s pocket all day, and before you think about what you’re doing you press it to your cheek. There’s a very faint smell to it, an odor of grease and dirt, but you don’t mind. It’s perfect the way it is.

Your fingers trace the runes carved into the side. You’ve always thought of orcish as a brutal, rough language, and it certainly sounds guttural enough when you hear it barked in the streets. The orcish graffiti on the sides of subway cars is jagged and spiky. But these runes are soft and flowing. They look like waves crashing over each other, or windblown patterns in a grassy field. You wish you could read them. Finally you put the little wolf in among your paper zoo. He looks perfectly natural there, surrounded by giraffes and lions and ducks. You hope they’ll be friends.

Sleep takes a long time to come that night. You stare at the ceiling, replaying the day over and over again in your head. You think about the last thing you said to him as he stood there in the hall. You had almost told him… almost told him… what? 

You want him. That’s what you’d almost said. And it was true. It’s like a weight being lifted off your shoulders, the release of a breath you didn’t realize you were holding. You want to feel his arms wrapped around you, his tusks against your chin as you kissed him. You want to rest your head against the green chest under that stained workshirt and play with his hair. You blush in the dark. You don’t even know if he has a wife or girlfriend-- but somehow, you doubt it. He took the time to make you a little present. He thought about you _ in his own time _ . The blush is creeping up your cheeks now, but you’re alone, and you know what you have to do to get to sleep. Your hand creeps down between your thighs and, for the moment at least, you relax.

The next day you awaken with a renewed sense of purpose. Admitting your feelings to yourself is freeing. On the way to work, you pull out your phone and surreptitiously start Googling. Aware of the people all around you, and trying to shelter your screen with your hand, you type in “orc courtship” and “orc dating.” There are a couple of online dating sites, but they’re only open to orcs. You find a forum, Orclovers.com, but a few minutes there leaves you feeling ill… it’s all fetishists, who talk about their orc partners like they’re living sex dolls. You wonder if that’s you. For a moment you doubt yourself, then you think about the little ivory wolf.  _ No _ , you think.  _ No, that’s real. I know it is. _

Then you remember something your mother told you when you were twelve. It was a cliche then and it’s a cliche now, but it’s all you’ve got. “Y/N,” she’d said, “the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”

When you get home, you ask Lily if she’ll give you the apartment this Friday. She raises her eyebrows. “Date night, huh?” she asks. “I won’t cockblock, don’t worry.” She giggles. “No, really, I’m proud of you, Y/N!” she says. “Get some, girl! I’m going out to a house party anyways.” 

You decide on fish stew with noodles, something hearty and easy to make. You aren’t the handiest in the kitchen, but this is hard to mess up. You spend hours trekking through your apartment, deciding on decor, music, place settings, and so on. You can’t do it forever, though. You can’t put off the last and most vital step.

You find Kolosh in the basement again. He’s in the laundry room, replacing the snacks in the vending machine. You tap gently on the glass front to get his attention.

“Oh. Hello, Y/N,” he says. His gravelly voice sends a tickle up your spine. “How’s the washing machine?”

“Fine. Fine,” you say. “No problems. Hey, so this is how the snack machine gets topped off, huh? I always figured it just refilled itself.”

Smooth. Real smooth. You sound like an idiot. Kolosh looks down at you in puzzlement for a second. “Nah,” he says. “Super’s too cheap to spring for a magic one.”

You gape at him until his broad, craggy face splits in a grin. He booms out laughter and you laugh alongside him. He reaches up into the guts of the machine and pulls out a 100 Grand bar. “Snack?” he asks. 100 Grand isn’t your favorite, but right now you’d eat a dead pigeon if he handed one to you. You tear off the wrapping and bite down. He grabs a second one for himself and devours it in two quick gulps, while you take your time with yours.

“Don’t tell anyone I gave you that, ok?” he says. “You have to work maintenance to get freebies.” He taps his nametag. “Perks of the job.”

You nod. Seeing your opening, you decide to go for it. “Well,” you say, trying to keep your voice casual, “let me pay you back then. Do you want to have dinner Friday? With me, I mean. In my apartment. Upstairs.” You finally manage to stop yourself from saying anything else. It’s too late to stop your cheeks reddening.

  
Kolosh stares down at you, suddenly all serious. “I-” he begins, and trails off. “It’s not…”

“You can take a look at my fridge while you’re up there,” you say quickly. “I think the freezer is shorting out.”

For a moment, he looks like he’s going to say no anyways, but then he glances surreptitiously over his shoulder and nods at you. “Alright,” he says. “Six o clock ok?”

“Perfect,” you say. Your stomach is full of butterflies and your head is spinning. You can’t believe you did that! For the rest of the day, you feel like you’re walking on air.

Friday rolls around and the butterflies come back with a vengeance. You work from home again, finishing up hours early and getting to cleaning. You can’t believe how messy the place is. It’s not all Lily, either, as much as you’d love to blame her. You scrub counters, pick up food wrappers and stack books back on the bookshelf. Once the place looks acceptable, you start cooking. Your mom helpfully sent you her recipe (along with a note about how proud she was that you were cooking for yourself) and you hum happily as you work. Soon the fragrant smell of spices fills the apartment. You even have time to fold a couple of origami fish to leave at the place settings.

All too soon there’s a heavy knock at the door. You scurry over and pause by the front hall mirror. You’re wearing a blue-green blouse and a long matching skirt; Lily suggested you borrow one of her dresses for your “date night,” but she favors necklines that plunge a little more than you’re comfortable with. You put on a little foundation and concealer, but no lipstick or eyeshadow. Even that decision you agonized over. You wish, not for the first time, that you could call the whole thing off. It all seems so  _ real _ now.

Kolosh knocks again, more lightly, and you take a deep breath. This is it. You put a smile on and open the door.

Your first thought is how different he looks out of uniform. He’s wearing pinstriped slacks and a grey button-up shirt. His green skin seems vibrant, shiny almost, against the dull colors. His hair is done up in a topknot and he’s wearing scuffed-looking leather shoes that look large enough to swallow both of your feet. He’s making some minute adjustment to his color as you open the door and he snatches his hand back quickly, as though you caught him doing something naughty.

“Come in!” you say. “Please!” You’ve already started the music, and your “relaxation” Spotify playlist is pouring out of the speaker on the kitchen counter.

His first step across the threshold is wary, but he follows you to the kitchen, where you’ve set two places. “It’s fish stew,” you say, carrying the serving bowl in oven-mitted hands. “Careful, it’s hot.”

“Smells delicious,” he says. His big nostrils flare as he inhales, and the corners of his mouth turn up. You smile too. This is so much easier than you thought!

The chair creaks under Kolosh’s weight, but it holds. Your silverware looks so dainty in his hand, but he holds it with surprising grace. He purses his lips to blow on the soup and you catch a glimpse of canines like a dog’s. He tucks a napkin under his chin and you almost laugh out loud. He looks like he’s trying hard to be on his best behavior-- but you are too, so you can’t exactly criticize.

He’s quiet while he eats, but he’s ravenous, draining his bowl and refilling it before you’re even halfway done. You’re glad you made plenty. Over dinner, you keep the conversation light. You find out that he was born in the country, and his parents moved here when he was a cub. “My dad drove a taxi,” he says. “My mom worked at a community center.” He looks down. “It ran out of money and had to shut down, so she just stayed at home to raise us.” You tell him about your mom, about your job, about college. You’re a little self-conscious as you do so. It occurs to you that there weren’t any orcs on your campus, either, though you didn’t consider it at the time. You wonder if he thinks you’re lording your education over him.

“So who are we listening to?” he asks, breaking a silence that has gone on just long enough to be uncomfortable. “Oh, this is Vibrant,” you say, eager to change the subject. “Their keyboardist is a pixie, actually. Isn’t that cool? She dances on the keys.”

He nods and agrees. Yes, it’s very cool. “Normally I listen to poundjack,” he says. “Ironhearts, you know. They’re big.” You’ve heard the orcish music blaring from boom boxes at construction sites before. It’s not your thing-- a little loud and dissonant-- but you nod. “I can check them out,” you say. You swirl your soup nervously. Are you really out of things to talk about already?

“Where’d you learn to do that… scrimshaw thing?” you ask. Kolosh perks up. “Amadaya?” he says. “My father taught me. That’s how it’s passed down, father to son, mother to daughter. Did your mother teach you about paper folding?”

  
“Oh, no,” you say. “I picked that up in high school. There was an origami club. I used to love to make those folding things, you know, where you make a wish?”

Kolosh squints at you, so you mime the finger motions of the cootie-catcher. His eyes widen in recognition. “Oh!” he exclaims. “Oh, we used to have those! In grade school! I remember that!”

You laugh. “Yeah, I used to tell everyone’s future on the playground. I guess I just picked up the taste for it.”

It’s as if a switch has flipped. From there, the conversation flows smoothly. You talk about what’s on TV (nothing good, although that new cop show is pretty great), how the local basketball team is playing (terrible, since they traded away their elven point guard), the new tower going up on 56th street (an eyesore, and the construction has been going on for what seems like forever). Before you know what’s happening, it’s eight o clock and you’re both stuffed.

Kolosh clears the plates without asking and starts the dishes. “No,” you protest, “no, you’re a guest, let me do it.” He won’t stop, so you reach over and grab the serving ladle out of his hand. You whap him on the shoulder with it, spraying suds everywhere. “Stop it!” you laugh. “Come on, let me.” 

“Ok, ok.” He relents and backs off a step with his arms held up in a gesture of surrender. “Thanks for having me over, Y/N. I really had a… a good time.”

“Me too,” you say. You’re suddenly very aware of him, of the space between you, of how close you’re standing, of his steady breathing. You look up and meet his gaze. His mouth is slightly open, his formidable tusks standing like guards before a gate. He’s so close, you could lean right up and kiss him.

  
So you do. He pulls back at first but you press forward and then he’s melting, melting into you, into the kiss. His hand falls on your shoulder and you pull yourself closer. You can feel his tusks pressing into your cheeks, but they’re smooth, not sharp, and inside his mouth is warm and welcoming. You taste the spices of the fish stew and something else, an earthy taste that’s not at all unpleasant. His tongue is broad and flat and you caress it with your own until you’re so tangled in each other that you don’t think you could break the kiss even if you wanted to.

You don’t want to, of course. It goes on for ten seconds, fifteen. You feel the warm breath gusting from his nostrils against your cheek. Finally he pulls back. There’s a dreamy expression in his eyes and you know you have the same one. He looks at you with those deep brown eyes and then, abruptly, looks away.

“I should go,” he says hoarsely. Your face falls and you can feel icy fingers gripping your heart.

“Kolosh…” you say.

“I’m… I’m sorry, Y/N,” Kolosh whispers. “We can’t. We shouldn’t. My job… and you live here, and you’re, you’re…”

“Human?” you ask. Tears are pricking the corners of your eyes. “Is that it? I’m human, so I’m off limits? What are you afraid of?”   
  


“I’m not afraid,” he growls, and for a moment your heart turns over. In that moment you can sense the potential for violence coiled up in him. He’s never looked more like an orc than he does in that moment, pinstriped pants or not. “I just… it won’t work, Y/N. It can’t.” He walks to the kitchen door and turns back towards you. His face is a picture of misery. “Thank you for dinner,” he says. “You can call me whenever you need something fixed, ok? That’s what I’m for.”

“Kolosh!” you say, and he pauses and looks at you.

You pick up one of the spoons in the sink. Slowly, deliberately, you hold it over the garbage disposal and drop it inside. Kolosh stares at you with his mouth open. Without breaking eye contact, you reach over to the switch and turn on the disposal, and the crunching rattle is music to your ears.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Kolosh is moving almost before you’ve turned on the garbage disposal. He crosses the kitchen in two quick strides and reaches his hand towards the sink. You intercept it on the way and step into him, and his momentum carries him forward until your bodies are pressing together. You lean forward and up and kiss him again. This time he doesn’t pull back. One of his hands presses on your back, pushing you closer to him, the other runs through your hair. You can feel his nails scoring your scalp but you don’t care. His tusk is pressing into your chin. It’s an awkward pose, all things considered, and the grinding sound of the garbage disposal mincing your spoon isn’t the best soundtrack for this moment, but you can’t break the kiss. Not yet.

Your hand goes to his neck. You can feel muscles standing out like cords beneath the skin. He’s wound as tight as a guitar string. His skin is warm and dry and slightly leathery beneath your fingers. You pull him closer. Your other hand slips around his waist. He’s so broad, you can barely reach his back; if you hugged him with both arms outstretched, your hands  _ might _ be able to touch behind him. 

You pull back at last. For a moment, a bridge of saliva links you two, and then it breaks. He’s staring down at you in wonder. You reach out and turn off the clattering disposal, then grab his hand in both of yours. Seeing you slim fingers next to his thick ones is a stark reminder of how much larger he is than you. He could crush you like an eggshell if he wanted to. But you know he won’t. In fact, there seems to be no strength in that arm at all. He lets you lead him like a dog on the end of a leash out of the kitchen, down the hallway, and into the bedroom.

You sit him down on your bed, which creaks alarmingly under his weight. Right now, you don’t care if it breaks. You don’t care about explaining it to Lily. This is the right place for this, you sense that deep down, and the right time. It’s all coming together here, tonight, in your apartment, a moment you’ve been dreaming of for who knows how long. You’ve had boyfriends before, but none of them serious, and you always found excuses to keep them at arm’s length. You were waiting for Kolosh.

He sits patiently while you unbutton his shirt and throw it open. He says your name, once, but you hush him with a finger to his lips. He’s just staring at you like a puppy now. You feel like you have to give him instructions. “Undershirt,” you say, and he starts to pull it off. While he does, you unbutton your blouse and shrug it off, then unhook the straps of your bra. You pull it off one arm, then the other, and toss it to the floor. His eyes are drawn to your breasts as though by magic, and he doesn’t look away even when you climb up on top of him. The tortured frame of your bed gives another squeak, but it holds up even as you straddle him and lay a palm flat against his chest. A tiny shove is enough to land him flat on his back. His waist is wide enough that kneeling on top of him is a little uncomfortable, but you don’t mind it. You lean down and press your breasts against his chest. It’s like sunning yourself on a flat rock warmed by the sun. You lean in close and plant kisses on his cheek, his nose, his tusks (left and then right). The last one is on his lips and you let it go on and on. His tongue, broad and flat, is questing into your mouth, tasting you, and you welcome it. You can smell him, a raw and musky scent that’s overpowering whatever store-brand deodorant he’s wearing. Something hard stirs in his pants and presses against your thigh.

His chest is just like you imagined: broad and green, pectorals clearly picked out, with a light dusting of curly black hair. You can see old scars, and above his left nipple, something that looks like a brand or tattoo. It’s black, a stylized curve that looks like a jagged blade. You lay your head in the hollow of his neck trace your finger across it. “What’s that?” you ask.

“Clan rune,” he whispers. “Steelaxe.” His fingers are twirling through your hair again. They’re so gentle-- you imagine him sitting at a desk for hours, carefully chipping away at a piece of ivory to make a little fish or frog or bear. 

You try the word out in your mouth. “Steelaxe. Kolosh Steelaxe.” He nods.

He doesn’t seem to know what to do with his other hand, so you grab it and lift it to your breast. He offers no resistance at all. His thick fingers curl up to cup your warm flesh, and the ball of this thumb brushes against your nipple. The touch is soft, so soft, but the little bud stiffens at once. You gasp as an electric tingle rolls up your spine. Your little noises encourage him; he spirals his thumb inward, taking his time, eking out every drop of pleasure he can. You can feel warmth building between your thighs. Your panties are damp and you grind your hips against him once, twice.

Your hand reaches down to his fly and unzips it. You fumble with the button for a moment longer before that too yields before your questing fingers. You reach inside his boxers and there it is: something warm and alive, quivering in your hand, pulsing in time to his heartbeat. Your fingers close around it and you marvel at the softness. You draw it out and it pops free, glistening wetly between your fingers, a single drop of precum beading the tip. It looks and feels  _ thick _ but you’re not afraid. You know he won’t hurt you.

Removing your panties without getting up is difficult, but you’re not willing to let go of him. In the end you lie on your side on top of his stomach and fold your legs up, then reach up under your dress with both hands. It’s an incredibly undignified position but Kolosh isn’t complaining and neither are you. You let your panties fall to the floor, roll over onto your stomach, and slowly sit upright. 

Your heart is hammering in your chest. This is it. This is the moment. Your dress pools around you on the bed as you kneel with your legs on either side of him. You reach between them with one hand to guide his cock inside you. The round tip brushes against your delicate lips, and then you exhale and slide down onto it.

He’s  _ big _ , bigger than he looked. He fills you up much fuller than your tentative experiments with your shampoo bottle. You feel the bulbous head of his prick rubbing against your velvety walls, putting pressure just  _ there _ , that magical spot you could sometimes find with your curious fingers. It feels incredible, like someone lit a fuse deep inside you and it’s fizzing towards a spectacular  _ boom _ . You let yourself settle another inch onto his shaft and it rubs against your clit. The sensitive little pearl reacts immediately, sending out a crackling shockwave of warmth that envelopes your body.

You hesitate and just sit there, feeling him inside you for a moment. He’s staring up at you in wonder. Awe is painted into every line of his face. Those big brown eyes are full of devotion, and you understand instantly that he’s  _ yours _ now,  _ yours _ for as long as you want him,  _ yours _ in a way he’s never been anyone else’s. You rest one hand on his navel and pump your hips-- just once, just a little, but enough to fill your head with sparks. Another pump and you gasp. As he slides out of you, you feel a hollow pit in the base of your stomach; as he thrusts back in, that emptiness is deliciously filled. He looks up you with a silent question on his face and you nod assent. Slowly, gently, his big hands close around your waist, and he moves his hips just so. His thrusts are slow and easy, and you roll your hips back and forth to move along with him. He’s cradling you in his hands with surprising delicacy, as though he’s afraid you’ll shatter. You won’t, and you know it. You feel like you’re riding a thunderstorm. 

Something is building up inside you. You’ve cum before, usually after a few minutes of frantic rubbing or the sustained attention of a vibrator, but this is different. It feels like a stormcloud, one of those black-and-purple thunderheads that would gather in the skies outside your childhood home before releasing their fury all at once. The air would fill with static tension and the smell of ozone, and you recall that feeling now. You feel as though your hair is standing on end. Every muscle in your body is drawn tight, coiled, the potential thrumming like a like wire. Kolosh’s every thrust makes you bite back a moan. He’s exploring you, finding every secret nook and cranny of your body. His cock seems to mold itself to your shape, to move with you in just the right way to leave you moaning and breathless. Your coral-pink lips cling to it with each thrust as though unwilling to let it go. You can feel his balls brush against your bottom as he hilts himself inside you. They seem to vibrate with barely contained power.

He adopts an expression of intense concentration. His breathing becomes shallow and he lets out a weak grunt. His thrusts are fast now, confident, each one finding the secret heat inside you and releasing it to spread. His nails dig into the soft skin of your waist and you cry out, partly in pain, partly in uncontrollable pleasure. One last thrust and he goes deeper than before, so deep that you feel impaled, like a specimen in a museum. His cock twitches and you feel something hot and wet shooting forth inside you. At the same time you surrender to the rising tide of pleasure. It sweeps across your brain like a wildfire, and you feel your old life burning away. Your inhibitions, your fears, your insecurities, they crisp and blow away in tatters. All that’s left is the essential you, the you that you always knew you could be. 

Tomorrow, nothing will have changed. You’ll have the same roommate and the same boring job. But everything will be different. You know that, as surely as you’ve known anything.

You collapse on Kolosh’s chest, breathing hard. He looks exhausted as well, as though he has held nothing back from you. If he has, you think idly, you’ll have plenty of time to make him pay for it. He’s softening inside you, but you don’t want him to pull out. Not yet. You lie there, enjoying the heat of him, the heat that’s now glowing inside you like a miniature sun. Sweat beads your forehead and drips down onto his chest. Your fingers scrabble aimlessly through the soft hairs around his nipples, while his stroke up and down your back.

Your paper menagerie sits on your desk watching you with ink-dot eyes. Among them is one ivory wolf. You think they’re happy for you. Is this love? You aren’t sure. It’s a little soon to be throwing around words like that. But if it isn’t, it’s the next best thing. And for now, that’s good enough. 


	6. Date Night

Date night’s always hard. 

Even now, even after you’ve been with Kolosh for two months, it’s a challenge. You’ve got a headful of ideas, that’s not the problem. And he’s clearly head-over-heels for you. The two of you spend hours in your apartment after he goes off-shift, eating takeout and watching endless episodes of prestige TV. On warm nights you sit on the roof together and watch the traffic, speculating on the inner lives of the tiny people so far below.

The problem comes up when you want to go out and  _ do _ something. Nice restaurant, live music, even bowling; whenever you bring it up, he counters with “Why don’t we just stay in?” At first, you thought he was shy; then, you started to suspect he was ashamed of you.

It all comes to a head when he declines your offer to go to a house party. One of Lily’s friends just found a new place and wants to celebrate. Kolosh throws up excuse after excuse almost as fast as you can shut them down.

“I’ll be tired after work.”

“You get off at five and the party’s at ten. Take a nap.”

  
“Well, I have work the next morning.”

“It’s Friday night. You’re off Saturdays.”

“Uber’s so expensive.”

“It’s two blocks away and it’s nice out, we’ll walk.”

  
“I don’t have anything to wear!”

“I already picked out your outfit. You’ll wear that nice sweater-vest I bought last month.”

“I’ll be the only orc there!”

“No you won’t! Unatha’s coming with her girlfriend. You like them, right?”

“Unatha’s annoying,” he says sulkily, and you nod. 

“Yeah, she is. But that’s not why you don’t want to go, is it?”

  
Silence.

“Is it?”

“No.” He slumps, and the defeated look in his eyes breaks your heart. You’re a little mad at him, but it’s funny, too; he looks like a kid who just got asked what happened to his homework. He mumbles something, and you arch your neck forward and cup your hand around your ear.

  
“What was that? I didn’t catch it.”

“I said,” he growls, “what happens when people  _ see _ us?” He claps his hand over his mouth and his eyes widen. Your smile dissolves. You stare at him in horror while fingers of ice grip your heart.

It’s worse than you thought. He’s ashamed of himself.

You sit down next to him and he recoils, but when you put your hand on his, he doesn’t pull away. He’s far too large for you to throw an arm over his shoulder the way you want to. “Oh, Kolosh,” you say, and stroke the back of his hand. It feels coarse, like a wire brush. Your small fingers wrap around his massive ones. “Kolosh, why would that matter?”

“It’s just… I’m just… and you…” he trails off and heaves a weary sigh. “What will they think of you?”

“That I have the best boyfriend in the world?” you say. “The strongest, the toughest, the sweetest? That none of them better try anything with me or you’ll stomp them flat and shove them through the mail slot?” He winces at that, and you backpedal hastily. “Sorry! Bad joke. But come on, Kolosh. Our friends know about you. You’re not exactly a secret. And I’m not ashamed of… of dating you.” You reach out and pluck something small and white off your bedside table. It’s a tiny dolphin, caught in midleap, with an expression of such transcendent joy on its ivory face that you can’t help by smile when you look at it. That’s why you keep it right next to your bed. It sends you to sleep happy.

“Look at this,” you say, holding it up in his face. “This is what I see when I look at you, Kolosh. This is who you are.” He tries to duck his face away but you follow it with the dolphin, making it “swim” through the air. “Look at me, Kolosh!” you say, your voice turning high-pitched and silly. “You made me! You know Y/N loves us!”

His scowl cracks for just a second, but that second is all you need. You reach up and plant a soft kiss on his cheek and you  _ feel  _ him melt. When he next looks at you, his eyes are wide and fearful.

“But, Y/N,” he whispers. “What if… what if…”   
  


“What if what?” you counter. “What if a someone says something rude? What if a meteor falls on us? What if we run around scared for the rest of our lives?”

  
He has nothing to say to that. As you knew he wouldn’t. So he goes to the house party and stands around like an island in a sea of people, flinching whenever anyone slaps him on the back or jabs him in the arm. But when Flora arrives with her boyfriend, the satyr Timon, he relaxes a little, and by the end of the party you’re sitting in his lap roaring with laughter as Unatha tells an unbelievably filthy orc joke. 

Afterwards you stumble home, him holding your hand like it’s a leash. You’ve had a bit too much of Lily’s “party punch.” Kolosh drank the stuff like lemonade, but if it affected him, he doesn’t show it. He leads you up to your room and lays you down in bed. When one of your questing hands slides down his pants, he gently removes it and hushes your protests. “Not tonight, angel,” he says. “You’re drunk.”

  
“Are  _ theshe _ drunk?!” you ask, pulling your shirt over your head and jiggling your boobs at him. It sounded like a good line in your head, but hearing it out loud, it leaves something to be desired. 

“Yes,” he sighs. “Yes, they are. Go to sleep.”

Not even the next day’s hangover can ruin your good mood. And from then on, by unspoken agreement, once a week the two of you go out and do something fun together. You jog along the riverwalk, eat at outdoor cafes, even catch a local improv troupe. There are some lines he won’t cross-- he absolutely refused your pleas to visit Toylandia, the sex shop downtown, and take selfies with the merchandise. “Absolutely not,” he says, and you can see the blush coloring his slabby green cheeks. But he’ll hold your hand, even if people are watching. And when you stand on tiptoe to give him a peck on the cheek, he hardly flinches at all.

One weekend in late July finds the two of you at the Artspace on 59th. The theme is Beauty of the Natural World, and the two of you go from room to room with your mouths hanging open. Ichythys water-paintings, sylvan elf tree sculptures, even abstract dance performances meant to imitate the wind and rain… the gallery feels like it’s been transported to an isolated valley and reclaimed by nature.

Off the corner of the last room there’s a low pedestal, almost an afterthought, crowded with little amadaya figurines. Like Kolosh’s, they’re mostly animals-- seals and wolves and owls, each covered in runes. You’re not much of an expert, but to you they look  _ wrong _ . The proportions are clumsy and their ivory surfaces are tool-scarred, as if the makers were in a hurry and didn’t want to take their time. “You could do better than that,” you whisper, nudging Kolosh in the side. He doesn’t say anything, but you can see the disappointment in his eyes when he looks at the figurines. This is the only orcish art exhibit in the whole gallery, and to be blunt, it kind of sucks.

Your musings are interrupted by the whine of a microphone. Everyone in the room turns their head to the far wall, where a little stage and a podium have been set up. A tweedy-looking old man hobbles out and taps at the microphone. “Hello?” he says, and his voice echoes out of hidden speakers. “Hello, friends! I want to thank you all for coming to tonight’s exhibition. Remember, the Artspace would not survive without the generosity of our patrons. I would like to introduce tonight’s generous sponsor, Sophitia Chass!”

There’s a polite round of applause and you join in, despite having no idea who that is. You’re not wondering long. A petite woman with long platinum-blonde hair skips to the podium and takes the microphone. She’s wearing a sleeveless Hermes dress that you just  _ know _ cost more than you make in a month, and she looks  _ fantastic _ in it. Her eyes are lively green and her smile is dazzling. She’s only a few years older than you, you realize with a pang of jealousy. Your fingers wrap around Kolosh’s.

“Welcome, everyone!” she says with a voice like a tinkling silver bell. “Thanks  _ so _ much for coming out! You know your support means the world to me. Art without people to enjoy it is just… empty.” She pauses and takes a deep breath before continuing.

  
“I funded this exhibit because this city is not yet whole. We have humans here, and elves, and fairies and satyrs and ichthys and dryads…” there’s a tiny pause, almost imperceptible, before she continues, “and orcs. But we all live our separate lives. So rarely do we come together. We’re all people, whatever shape we are.”

Kolosh squeezes your hand and you squeeze back. His palms are sweaty, but you don’t complain.

“So I funded this exhibit to show that we all share a world, and we all make art that honors our home. But that’s not enough. So for my next exhibition, I need you! All of you! I want art from the  _ people _ , art from pixies and werewolves and menehune! I want something real, something  _ raw _ , something gritty! Something that reflects this city in all its glory! If you’re a creative person, if you want to celebrate the diversity of this place, I want you!” She thrusts out her arm, one finger pointing straight ahead. There’s a pause while everyone realizes she’s finished, and then the room breaks into wild applause.

As you clap, you raise your head to look up at Kolosh. It takes him a moment to notice, and then a moment longer to decipher the look on your face. When he does, though, his eyes widen in horror. “Oh, no,” he mouths. He shakes his head emphatically. You just smile at him. When he’s done, he gives you an imploring look. You mouth up at him:   
  
“Oh, yes.”


	7. Outsider Art

From your mother, you inherited your long, dark hair, always so obedient and smooth. It never snarls or frizzes or splits. From your father, you inherited your steady hands and dexterous fingers. He loves to restore old clocks, and when he winds them all up at once, the symphony of staccato ticking fills the living room.

You’re not sure which of them passed on your complete lack of gag reflex, but you’re grateful for it anyways.

You’re on your knees in your bedroom with your hands folded in your lap. Kolosh sits on your bed with his legs splayed. From the waist down, he’s naked, and his prodigious member hangs down between his thighs. He’s staring down at you in hungry anticipation, but he knows better than to say anything. You’re in the driver’s seat now, and what’s about to happen will happen at the pace you choose.

Your lips descend on the flared tip of his cock. You plant a soft kiss right on the tip, your tongue flicking at the slit. He tastes clean and fresh-- as well he should, he’s fresh from the shower with his hair still wet. You reach up with one hand and encircle the base of his shaft. Your fingertips barely touch on the far side. He’s thick, so thick, and his prick responds to your touch by growing even harder. You take your time, licking from the base all the way to the tip, leaving a trail of spit-slick shine on his olive-green skin. His bollocks are likewise huge, the size of eggs, and you barely manage to get one into your mouth. You stroke his shaft with his sack in your mouth, sliding it from cheek to cheek, circling it with your tongue. He groans and you take pity on him.

Getting the head of his cock into your mouth is a challenge in itself. The first time you saw it, you were sure it was impossible. You’d dislocate your jaw! But slow and steady wins the race, and over time you’ve gotten better at it. Rather than strain your tendons, you relax your muscles and let your mouth fall open. Your lips peel back from your gums. Slowly, ever so slowly, you slide the massive, puffy head into your mouth until it’s resting inside your cheek. Your lips slide forward to form a tight, wet seal around it. Only then do you start to suck.

Your mouth is wet and warm and welcoming. Your tongue slides back and forth along his shaft. There are still several inches outside your mouth, enough for you to wrap your hand around it and pump it back and forth. You bob your head up and down as you do. Each time you slide forward  _ slightly _ farther, filling your mouth just a  _ little _ more with his meat. You taste his sweat and the salt tang of his precum, and deeper than that, an earthy, musky orc-scent that you’ve come to love.

  
Back, and forth. Back… and forth. Your mouth is nice and limber now and you let his cockhead pop free entirely. A bridge of drool links your lower lip to his flared head. You slurp it up like a strand of spaghetti and slide him back into your mouth. Your jaw is starting to ache a little, but you can’t let up now. You steel yourself and move on to the next phase in your challenge.

Relaxing your throat is tough. You swallow a couple of times, take a deep breath (through your nose; your nostrils fill with his musk and you feel yourself growing wet between the thighs), and ease him on to the back of your mouth. The head of his cock brushes against the back of your throat, but you still don’t gag. That’s good. You’ve got a lot of work to do yet. You can see his hips getting closer and closer. You can’t take him to the hilt-- you figure if you ever did, his prick might end up in your stomach-- but you can get close. His stomach is bare and you focus on his washboard abs, the little trail of dark fuzz leading down from his navel to his groin. Every muscle is there, perfectly visible beneath the taut green skin. He’s still wet from the shower. If you had an anatomy chart, you could pick each one out and label them. Sometimes you like to run your fingers along his stomach. You joked once that you can read him like Braille.

“Oh?” he’d said. “What does it say?”

“It says someone’s about to get fucked until she can’t walk,” you replied, and giggled at your own daring. And, hey, it turned out to be true.

Now you reach up with your free hand to stroke those muscles again. You love it when Kolosh bench-presses you. He’s so strong, but that strength is all turned inward. You’ve never even seen him swat a fly. Despite those biceps, each as big around as your thigh, you’ve never felt as safe as when you’re cuddled in his arms.

And now he’s at your mercy. He sits stock-still, not daring to move, as you slowly and patiently work yourself further and further along his cock. You make little chuffing noises as you swallow it deeper and deeper. You’ve got to breathe through your nose now. That’s ok. You’ve been practicing. The hand that was stroking him has run out of room-- instead, it goes to your neck, and you gently palpate the skin there. Yes, there’s no mistaking that bulge. It sticks out an inch or more. 

Your eyes are starting to water so you pull back and release your breath in a sigh. Kolosh groans as his cock pulls free from your tight throat. You’re just getting started, though. You fill your lungs and plunge forward again. His member barrels down your throat like a runaway train. And again. And again. You draw in a gurgling breath and the sound mixes with the liquid squishing of his prick pulverizing your tonsils. There’s no pain, only an intense stretching sensation.

His breath is coming faster now, and you know what that means. You increase the pace of your frantic deep-throating. The hand at your throat squeezes and massages his cockhead through the skin, as though you’re trying to milk him. He bellows and you impale yourself as far as you can, the deepest thrust yet. His cock twitches in your mouth once, twice, and then erupts like a volcano.

His warm seed splashes directly in your stomach. You can feel it pumping into you, rope after sticky rope. It’s thick, like porridge; you can’t even taste it, it’s so deep, but you feel it spurting, filling up your tummy with warmth. His balls are draining into you, and it’s been a few days, so there’s a lot of volume to make up. Finally you can’t take any more and you pull back far enough to take a breath. Now his cockhead is in your mouth and he’s  _ still _ cumming. It lands on your tongue and you swallow eagerly, ignoring the bruised feeling in your throat. It’s warm and salty and you don’t want to waste a drop. You can’t swallow nearly fast enough; he’s cumming like a geyser, and it fills your mouth and makes you pop your cheeks out like a chipmunk. You cough and sputter, drooling orc cum all down your chin, and more of it backflows up your sinuses and out your nose. Finally you fall backward, just in time for the last rope to plaster you right across the face. You lie there on your back, breathing hard, with seed dribbling out of your nose and the corners of your mouth. The room spins overhead. You can feel it sitting in your stomach like hot soup. It takes you more than a minute to catch your breath.

Finally you manage to regain your sitting posture. Kolosh looks as wiped out as you feel. His hair is hanging in his face and his chest is rising and falling with exertion. He gives you a weak smile.

“Y/N, are you ok?” he rumbles. You’re touched by the genuine concern in his voice. This was, after all, your suggestion.

“Yeah,” you breathe, and slither upright. You let yourself fall forward into bed next to him and your body naturally finds the hollow of his, his arm around you, your forehead nestled against the hollow of his neck. Your face and neck are absolutely  _ caked _ in slowly drying cum, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

“That was pretty impressive,” he says. You affect an air of nonchalance.

“Eh. I suppose.”

“Do you want me to reciprocate?” One hand slides down between your legs, and your thighs part automatically for him. The feeling of his long, blunt nail against your damp cotton panties quickens your heartbeat all over again, but you force yourself to push his hand away. There’ll be time for that later.

“Not right now,” you say, and snuggle in closer. “But if you want to do me a favor, there’s something else you could do.”

“Anything, angel,” he says.

“Submit your art to the gallery.”

There’s a long pause. Then, in a defeated voice, he replies: “Fuck.”

You smile. You can tell from his tone that you’ve won. It’s just a matter of negotiating your victory.

  
“Come on, babe,” you say. “You’re  _ sooooo _ talented. You’re way better than whatever idiot they got to do the last show.”

“You have to say that,” he grumps. “You’re my girlfriend.”

“No,” you say. “I could just avoid the topic. Like how every time Tabitha brings up her piping her boyfriend changes the subject.”   
  
“Well, she sounds like someone dropped a cat in a cement mixer,” Kolosh says. “It’s ridiculous. Who ever heard of a satyr who can’t pipe?”

You shrug. It’s unfortunate, all right.

“Seriously, Kolosh, you should. They won’t ask you to give a speech or anything. You don’t even have to go in yourself! Just let me take some pictures and send them in.”

He hesitates. But this is a compromise that’ll work, you can sense it. He’s looking for a way to give you what you want. You know he’s scared, but he’d never admit it, and the first time you brought it up he lost his temper and stormed out of your apartment in a funk. “I’m not scared!” he’d insisted. “I make art for me! And for you! I don’t want to… to sell out!”

Sellout or not, he  _ deserves _ to have his pieces shown off. And people deserve to see them. So that’s the argument you used, and that’s the argument that won him over. That, and the ability to drink from the garden hose without choking. Good ol’ inheritance.

“Fine,” he says. “You just take some pictures. Don’t even tell me what they say to you. I don’t want to know.”

You smile and feel the glaze on your cheeks crack. You don’t mind looking like this, but your roommate’s going to be home soon, and you should probably clean yourself up. You slide off the bed and stand barefoot on your floor, arms stretched over your head. Kolosh’s eyes drink in your naked form and you revel in the awe in his face. You were so shy, once. What happened?

That Saturday’s sunny and bright, but the two of your spend it indoors, despite Kolosh’s last minute plea to go for a picnic instead. You spend the afternoon composing what you think are some pretty artful shots of his chosen figures. He’s taking it seriously, at least; the pieces he’s picked are  _ great _ , even by his standards, intricate and naturalistic. There’s a walrus bellowing defiance between finger-sized tusks, a flitting dragonfly, even a curious-looking bear with its head stuck in a beehive. All of them are deeply inscribed with looping runes, like dark veins pulsing beneath their skin. You shoot and shoot and shoot, and after several hours you’ve got more than a hundred pictures. Kolosh gets to decide which ones go in. Initially, he just refuses them all, but after a patient conversation (in which the word “scared” is not used once) he selects a dozen and grudgingly agrees to send them in.

Afterwards, of course, you show him how proud you are of him. With your hands.

You send the email that very day, but all too soon, reality sets in. This is a major art exhibition at one of the hottest galleries in town. Sophitia Chass isn’t a nobody, either; an afternoon’s Googling shows you that she’s the youngest daughter of Stuart Chass, CEO of Chass Inc. and one of the wealthiest men in the city. All of his kids are involved in some kind of philanthropy, and the Chass Foundation sponsors everything from service dogs for veterans to rare-disease research. Sophitia’s pet cause seems to be art-- especially nonhuman art. She’s listed as the guest of honor at a half-dozen fundraisers. The word in the gossip pages are a bit juicier. Here she is leaving a club with an anonymous sidhe; there, she’s spotted at the beach with a pair of handsome ichthys. 

She’s an important lady and you are, to put it bluntly, a nobody. And your boyfriend, as talented as he is, is a janitor. So when you open your inbox a week later to see MEETING REQUEST- AMADAYA SCULPTOR from a chassfdn.org email address, you nearly fall out of your chair with shock. You tell yourself that it’s just a form rejection, a polite note to let you know that your contribution was appreciated. But when finally work up the courage to open it the email, it says it’s from Judith Scartalon, Personal Assistant to Miss Chass. Judith wants to know if you are available to meet Miss Chass “at your earliest convenience,” to “discuss the possibility of including some of Mr. Kolosh’s work in an upcoming exhibition.”

You are pretty sure you faint for a moment.

Kolosh doesn’t want to go, of course, but his argument is perfunctory at best. He knows what he’s agreed to. And he actually has a suit now! Well, it’s a blazer, but the tailor did his best, and it fits Kolosh’s broad shoulders in a way that you assure him is very flattering. So the following Friday evening finds the two of you riding the bus downtown, ignoring the odd stares from other passengers. One of Kolosh’s pieces-- the walrus-- is wrapped in tissue paper and nestled in a leather bag. Miss Chass was especially interested in that one, according to her assistant.

Sophitia Chass’s office is in the back of the Museum of Folk Art. It’s surprisingly dingy for such a VIP. The front-desk receptionist gives you directions, but at this time of night, there’s almost nobody else here. You walk past empty offices and darkened storage rooms, your heels clicking off the marble. Kolosh trails a few steps behind you.

Up ahead is the room the receptionist told you to look for. It’s a nondescript wooden door flanked by two more nondescript wooden doors, but light spills out from under this one, and the brass plaque on the wall reads CHASS. You knock twice. It sounds very loud in the echoey silence of the hallway.

There’s no response, and you strain to hear the sound of phone conversation or music coming from the other side. You check the clock in your phone. You’re a minute or two late, but she wouldn’t cancel because of that, surely? “Miss Chass?” you say, your voice quavering. All of your happy confidence is gone. Are you really about to walk into a meeting with one of the most powerful women in the city?

Kolosh gives you a nervous look. “Is she in here?” he whispers. You shrug. 

“The light’s on,” you reply. “Maybe she’s on the phone?”

Kolosh’s nostrils flare and his eyebrows furrow. “I smell something…” he murmurs, half to himself. “Try the door?”

You reach out and touch it gingerly, as though the doorknob might electrocute you or explode. It doesn’t, and it turns easily under your hand. You push the door open and peek your head inside. “Miss Chass?” you begin. “We’re here for…”

That’s as far as you get. Because Sophitia Chass is in her office after all.

She’s slumped over her desk with her arms sprawled out in front of her. Her eyes stare sightlessly at the ceiling. One hand dangles over the desk’s front edge, the other is curled up under her head, like she’s a student napping during class. Between them is a vast wash of blood. It’s already spilled over the front of the desk and pooled on the floor beneath it. It’s matted in her hair and drying under her fingernails. Her mouth is locked in an O of terror. Your eyes take all this in in the time it takes you to draw a breath: the blood, her blind stare, the terrible  _ concavity _ of her skull. The door slips out of your fingers and swings wide open, and behind you Kolosh gasps. 

That breaks the paralysis. You look from him to her and back again, and then you start to scream.


	8. Under Suspicion

The rest of the evening passes in a blur. You remember screaming. You remember Kolosh laying one heavy hand on your shoulder, his fingernails digging in hard enough to draw blood. You remember the sound of running feet and the chorus of shocked gasps. Then, for a while, your memory is blissfully blank.

Now you’re sitting in a hard plastic chair that’s just a little too short while a fluorescent bulb hums overhead. The room you’re in is nondescript: a single cheap pressboard table, a file cabinet in the corner, and an empty chair on the far side of the table. It looks like a cheapjack conference room in the basement of some cut-rate office somewhere. But it’s not. 

The door squeaks as it opens and a woman fills the frame. She looks momentarily surprised to see you, but she recovers quickly. She’s tall, broad-shouldered, with close-cropped black hair and thick biceps beneath the navy-blue sleeves of her uniform. You take in the glossy black buttons, the patches on her shoulders, the little gold pins in her collar. She looks as tired as you feel. Your brain adds up all the little details and spits out  _ policewoman _ , but you’re too numb and exhausted to be afraid. Besides, she doesn’t look angry.

She sits down in the chair across from you with a weary sigh. You notice that she’s wearing a plastic nametag. SERGEANT PALADINE. She opens her mouth to speak, hesitates, then reaches into her pocket and pulls out a badge set in a leather frame. She sets this down on the table and pushes it across to you with her fingertips. You look at it but make no move to pick it up. It has a number, it looks real. So what?

“Y/N?” she asks. You look up at her, unsure of what answer she wants.

“Is your name Y/N?” she says, patiently.

“Yes,” you reply. Seems safest.

“How are you doing, Y/N?”

You consider the question. It’s not as simple as it sounds. “I’m exhausted, numb with terror, and probably traumatized for life” is probably not a winning answer. “I’m cold,” you manage. You are. The July night air is in the high seventies, but it can’t be more than 55 in here.

Sergeant Paladine considers this, then stands up and twiddles the thermostat. She sits back and and folds her hands.

“Other than that, I mean. Are you hurt at all?”

“No.” Your brow wrinkles. The question is puzzling. “No, I just found the… the… found the…” 

You trail off. You’re not quite ready for the word “body.”

“I understand,” she says. “But did anyone hurt you?”

“No. The officers were very polite.”

You think that’s true. Your first memory once you swam back up out of the fog was of a werewolf officer draping you in a warm blanket and offering you a glazed cruller. You ate it with gusto-- wolfed it down, one might say-- then threw it all back up into the plastic trash can five minutes later. You haven’t tried to eat since then.

Sergeant Paladine gives you a look like you’re being difficult, but says nothing. She purses her lips and tents her fingers. “Are you ready to talk about that?” she asks. “Miss Chass, I mean. It’s alright if you’re not. You’re not in any trouble, Y/N. I just have to take a statement from you. Do you know what that--”

She’s interrupted by the door cracking open again. Another woman sticks her head in, this one copper-haired and olive-skinned, with elongated ears that suggest she has some elf in her background. She’s speaking even before she’s all the way inside. “Hey, Tey, coffee’s on, do you want--” she sees you and trails off. “Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were in here with someone.”

Sergeant Paladine waves a hand irritably. “Yeah, go ahead and--” she turns to you. “Do you want coffee, Y/N?”

You’re weary and still chilled to the bone. You force yourself to nod. Little sips, you tell yourself. Little sips.

“Two coffees, Li- Officer Sylvan. And it’s Sergeant while we’re on duty, thank you.”

Officer Sylvan winces and nods, then withdraws her head. The door clicks closed.

“While we wait for our coffee,” Paladine says, “why don’t you tell me everything you remember about tonight?”

This takes some time. You start with your arrival at the museum, then you realize that you have to back up to talk about the pictures you sent, and  _ that _ leads you to talking about the gallery showing, and  _ that _ leads you to talk about Kolosh and his sculptures. She interrupts you near the end, to ask about Kolosh. “That’s the orc male who was with you, correct?” she asks, clicking her pen and pulling a notepad out of her breast pocket.

You nod.

“And what is your relationship to Mr. Kolosh?”

“We’re, uh…” you blush. You’re not ashamed of him, but there’s something in the way she says it. She sounds so brusque. “We’re dating,” you manage. 

“I see.” She scribbles something down. “And was Mr. Kolosh with you the entire night?”

“Yes,” you say, temporarily lost. “Yes, we rode in on the bus together. What does that--”

You stop. A nasty little worm of suspicion uncurls itself in your gut.

“Where is he?” you ask.

“Don’t worry,” says the Sergeant, which just makes you worry more. You ball up your fists under the table. 

“Where is he?” you ask again, trying to keep the panic out of your voice. “Is he here? I want to see him!”

She sighs and puts down her notepad. “Look, let’s just get the rest of your story out. Then I promise you can see him, ok? He’s fine. He’s here. It’s just standard procedure to talk to you separately.”

“He was with me the whole time!” you say. Hysteria is starting to edge into your tone. “The whole time! I swear! Check the… the bus camera! He had nothing to do with it!”

“Y/N, please calm down,” says Paladine. “I believe you. This is just standard procedure. I know you’ve had a very stressful night. You’re safe now, ok? I promise, you’re safe. Nothing bad is going to happen to you here.”

There’s a timid knock at the door, and Sergeant Paladine gets up to answer it. You catch a glimpse of the copper-haired policewoman, Officer Sylvan, and the two of them have a brief whispered conversation. Then Paladine turns back to you with a cup of coffee in each hand.

You take your cup in both hands and curl up on your chair. It’s hot enough to burn your lips, but you don’t mind. The room’s still freezing cold and you could do with a little warmth. The first sip makes your stomach churn but you don’t throw up, and each one after that gets a little easier.

Somehow, you manage to finish your story. Paladine watches you attentively and occasionally takes notes. When you’ve finished, she clicks her pen and slides it into her pocket. “That’s all you remember?” she asks.

“That’s all. Next thing I knew, you people had arrived and took us away. Can I see Kolosh now?” 

She sighs again, finishes her coffee in one swig, and stands up. “Alright,” she says. “Follow me.”

She leads you through the hallways of the police station. A glance at a wall clock tells you it’s 1am, and most of the offices are deserted. A pixie office is laying out photographs on a corkboard in the next room. You pass a room where a frizzy-haired human woman is answering the dispatch radio, and another where two uniformed werewolves of indeterminate sex are sitting around a coffee table. A third, this one with mangy fur and street clothes, is cowering and whining in his seat. He gives you a desperate look as you pass.

You follow her past a long, low desk, and then the wall to your left falls away and you’re standing in front of the cells. Despite the hot coffee you just drank, your blood freezes in your veins. The closest cell is empty. The one after that has a human man in a stained T-shirt and shorts snoring on the bench. The one after that…

Kolosh looks up at the sound of your footsteps. Your heart breaks at the sight of his expression. He looks so defeated, sitting slumped on his bench. His hands are folded in his lap.

  
“Kolosh!” you cry and, ignoring Paladine’s shout, you run towards the cell. He stands up but stays back from the bars. You want to reach through, to take his hands, but before you can get close another policeman steps in your way. This one’s a naga, his lower body coiled beneath him. He grabs you roughly by the shoulders and hisses in your ear. “Not too closssssse!” he shouts. His breath smells appalling. You whimper and struggle in his arms. In his cell, Kolosh’s big hands ball into fists.

Paladine steps forward. “Enough!” she shouts. “Let go. And get the keys. We’re not holding this one.”

The naga hisses again, but releases you and slithers away towards the desk. “I’m sorry,” Paladine says, and at least she  _ sounds _ genuine. “It’s standard procedure for… for orcs.” She says this last almost under her breath, and has the decency to look ashamed. “But your story checks out. The front desk clerk at the museum remembers both of you. So you’re free to go. You too, sir.” 

The naga officer slides back into view. He’s grumbling under his breath the whole time. “Back up, you!” he hisses at Kolosh, then takes his time fumbling with the keys. Finally he unlocks the cell and slides open the door. He turns and slithers away, his body swaying the whole time. Kolosh steps out of the cell and then stands there, blinking in the fluorescents, like he has no idea what to do next.

Paladine has papers for you both to sign and initial. She explains: “This is your statement, and this testifies that everything in it is true, and this says that you understand your rights.” She takes the papers, drops behind behind the counter, and beckons you to follow her.

“Don’t leave town, either of you,” she says as she leads you towards the exit. “You are not suspects at this time, but we may have questions for you later on. Understand?” She looks from Kolosh to you and back again. “Look,” she continues, her voice dropping to a near-whisper, “This is going to get ugly. Mr. Chass is an… important man in this city. I’d appreciate neither of you talking to the papers, and you probably shouldn’t tell any of your friends about this either, in case they talk. Just… don’t be stupid, ok? Do you want me to call you a car?”

You look at Kolosh, who shakes his head. The station’s a few blocks from your building, you recall, but not too far. Right now, you just want to be out. The air in here is thick and the walls seem to be closing in on you. Every time you close your eyes you see Kolosh looking out from behind those bars.

The station doors hiss closed behind you and leave you standing in the hot summer night. Your hand gropes blindly for Kolosh’s, and you feel his thick fingers encircling yours. You squeeze him tight and set off towards your building.

Kolosh is silent, but you can feel the anger pouring off him like steam from a hot bath. It’s in his hunched posture, his short huffy breaths, the way he stalks forward. That anger scares you a little, but mostly it just makes you sad. “Kolosh,” you say, “I’m so, so sorry they did that. I was so angry. I told them I had to see you right away--”

“I know,” he says. You can hear the tension in his voice. “It’s not your fault, Y/N. I know.”

You give him another hopeful little squeeze. “That was wrong of them,” you say. “They don’t know you like I know you. I love yo-”

“HEY!” The voice is high-pitched and jagged and it slices your concentration like a knife. It’s so sharp and sudden that you stop short. You look around for a moment before turning towards the alley you just passed. There, just inside the mouth, is a young human man in frayed jeans and a tank top. He leans drunkenly against the alley wall. “Hey, beautiful!” he says, when he sees you looking at him. There’s booze dripping from every syllable, the kind of swaggering confidence that only comes out of a bottle. “Whatchoo doin’ with that pigface? Come on over, baby, I got what you need.” He grinds his hips against the wall in a way that’s clearly more alluring in his head.

You grimace in disgust. “Fuck off, you prick!” you scream. It’s not original, as insults go, but it has the force of your conviction behind it. The man adopts a hurt expression.

“Aw, whyoo gott’ be like that, baby?” he asks, his voice all wounded pride. “Girl who’ll fuck a pigface’ll fuck jus’ about anythin’, right? Why no’ me?”

You take a deep breath to scream another torrent of curses, but before you can, Kolosh steps forward and bellows at the top of his lungs. His fists are raised at his sides, his lower jaw jutting forward, mouth open as wide as it can go. Tendons stand out on his neck like steel hawsers. He roars, and flecks of spittle fill the air. Then he puts his shoulder down and charges towards the alley. You’re left in his wake, gaping in astonishment. He crosses the space in a few quick strides and his fist is already moving. Somehow, the drunk manages to slide out of the way, and Kolosh’s punch demolishes a square foot of crumbling brickwork. He roars and reaches down with one huge paw. It slowly rises in front of him, the sobbing drunk dangling by his collar. All of his bravado is gone. He’s pleading, burbling, too frightened for words. There’s a sharp stink in the air and a dark stain on the front of his pants. Kolosh raises his other fist and holds it behind his head.

And freezes. For a moment, the three of you form a tableau: the drunk, Kolosh, and you, standing just behind your boyfriend, reaching up with both hands and clinging desperately to his fist. You know he’s strong enough to lift you right off the ground one-handed if he wants to.

But he doesn’t. He sighs, and you can see him deflate. He releases the man, who crawls away on his hands and knees. Kolosh turns to you and you can see tears glistening on his cheeks. Wordlessly, you wrap your arms around his midsection and press your face against his chest. You’re crying now, too.    
  
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs into your hair. “I’m sorry, angel. I’m so sorry.”

“Shhhhh,” you say. “Shhhhhh. I love you, Kolosh.”

You feel one hand on your lower back and the other stroking the back of your head. For a long moment, Kolosh is silent. Then, in a tiny voice, he replies:   
  


“I love you, too.”


End file.
